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AT&T Calls For Net Neutrality Laws After Fighting To End FCC Rules (engadget.com)
Few people would call AT&T a champion of net neutrality, but that isn't stopping it from trying to claim the title. From a report: CEO Randall Stephenson has posted an open letter calling on Congress to write an "Internet Bill of Rights" that enforces "neutrality, transparency, openness, non-discrimination and privacy protection" for American internet users. They would not only defend consumer rights, Stephenson argues, but establish "consistent rules of the road" that give internet companies and telecoms an idea of what they can expect. The company chief also insisted that AT&T honored an open internet and doesn't block, throttle or otherwise hinder access to content.
The problem, as you might suspect, is what the company isn't saying. The US already had protections for net neutrality that do what it's asking for, but AT&T and other telecoms have spent years fighting net neutrality regulation whenever it comes up. The carrier spent over $16 million in lobbying just in 2017, and it maintained its anti-regulatory stance throughout the FCC's repeal process.
The problem, as you might suspect, is what the company isn't saying. The US already had protections for net neutrality that do what it's asking for, but AT&T and other telecoms have spent years fighting net neutrality regulation whenever it comes up. The carrier spent over $16 million in lobbying just in 2017, and it maintained its anti-regulatory stance throughout the FCC's repeal process.
AT&T just wants its merger to go through.
Sure, encode the "new" net neutrality as a law drafted by AT&T lobbyists. Set things in stone and neuter any future liberal FCCs.
Hey! I'm innocent!
Pro net neutrality spam?
Twas the other guy!
The company chief also insisted that AT&T honored an open internet and doesn't block, throttle or otherwise hinder access to content.
Well that's simply false. Don't believe me? Try running Exodus/Covenant on their wireless network & see how many sources you get back vs your home connection...
Nothing more, nothing less.
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AT&T opposes net neutrality... Slashdot whines incessantly.
AT&T supports net neutrality... Slashdot whines incessantly.
Let's be honest. This isn't about net neutrality at all. It's about Slashdot looking for an excuse to whine about anything and everything.
They want to block individual states passing their own laws because federal law has priority over state law. When they removed the federal net neutrality rules and reclassified internet again the FCC removed their authority to block state level actions.
What ATT wants is a watered down NN that doesn't block "fast lanes" (masquerading as slow lanes for everyone that doesn't pay) and prevents state laws. In other words they want the federal NN gone because they were too strong but they still want federal rules, just really silly easy ones that they can ignore so the states can't pass their own rules.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Dang, I read this and said, "I've read something like this before, haven't I?" It's really no different than when AT&T pulled this stunt: https://news.slashdot.org/stor... What a bunch of maroons.
depends a lot on how much you are vested in content. If you are an Internet provider with little content holdings then you have the option of playing gate keeper or playing neutral and not betting on winners. The short term strategy is to milk the system by gate keeping but that slows innovation and opens you to competition; the long term win is to be the best and biggest net neutral internet provider. What you don't have is the third option which is favor your own content over others.
AT&T sees two problems: how to make bets in a changing landscape and it's lack of content holding compared to competitors. Thus they would prefer to calm the waters and have a market where their weakness isn't exposed. On the other hand, if they could merge with a content company things would change.
Their catch-22 is they hadn't pulled off the merger yet, and people won't let them if they are playing the king maker strategy too early.
Hence their position is both admirable and machiavelian.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
No, no they should not. The whole reason regulatory agencies exist is because Congress works at glacial speeds and is simply not nimble enough, or focused enough, to regulate industries that change the rules every other year. Getting Congress to enact a law can take years and huge public effort, and then it is next to impossible to have that law effectively updated once it's on the books and precedents have been set around it. By then the industry it was aimed at will have changed so much it's just a paper tiger.
AT&T is just reacting to the story about Montana tying Net Neutrality into state contracts, which creates headaches and potential lawsuits for any ISP that operates within Montana that wants to do business with them.
In my mind, there are people *elected* to make laws, after a process of debate and open amendment. To keep their jobs, lawmakers have to face the voters every two years (or six years). Those people, Constitutionally charged with making law, may need to make some law around net neutrality (though very carefully, the technical details of managing a modern carrier network are complex).
Tom Wheeler was not an elected law maker. In fact, he was neither elected NOR had any Constitutional authority to unilaterally make law. He should not have made net neutrality law as he did.
You're thinking of the Telecommunications Act of 1934, specifically Title 2 of the 1934 Act. Title 2 created the FCC to regulate the phone company in certain ways. THE phone company, then officially named American Telephone and Telegraph, but branded as Bell. The FCC was given the authority to do specific things regarding the national monopoly phone company, which operated by telling the operator who you wanted to talk to and she's physically plug your line into their line.
Almost a hundred years later, Tom Wheeler decided "since I was given legal authority to regulate how Ma Bell plugs copper together, that must mean I can unilaterally make up new laws for the whole internet." Most lawyers would disagree.
Congress COULD pass legislation directing the FCC to enforce specific requirements designed to support listed objectives which different people associate with the general approach called "network neutrality", but they haven't chosen to do so yet.